


it’s rotten work

by oopsabird



Category: DC Extended Universe, Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Banter, Caretaking, Charlie’s weird self-esteem issues, Espionage, M/M, Minor Injuries, Pining, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Sami in full Mother Hen Mode, Trench Warfare, alcohol mention, mutual crush stupidness, sober Charlie, suffering through a crush on your best friend in dumb repressed silence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27105451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oopsabird/pseuds/oopsabird
Summary: “Hm.” Gingerly, Charlie reaches up to touch the bandage on his temple, and winces when it throbs exactly as much as expected. “Ow-”“Idiota, stop touching that!” Sami gently swats the hand away, frowning in disapproval — he rolls his eyes, when Charlie swats back and stubbornly sticks out his tongue. “Goodness, so childish.”“Aw, bite me,” Charlie mutters, no venom to it and a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.
Relationships: Charlie & Sameer (Wonder Woman), Charlie/Sameer (Wonder Woman)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 9





	it’s rotten work

**Author's Note:**

> eyyyyy look who finished a fiiiiic!
> 
> wrote this off a one-sentence dialogue prompt that I managed to pick and poke into an entire proper scene over the course of the month. yes, its more pining, you all get to suffer exactly as much as the characters do until I finish one of my long meticulously crafted (procrastinated) get-together fics :)
> 
> of course the title is from the classic exchange from Orestes: “I’ll take care of you” “It’s rotten work” “Not to me. Not if it’s you.” and if that doesn’t sum up their dynamic then what the hell does?
> 
> this was a nice fun opportunity to explore a dynamic for these guys that is during the war, but before Charlie’s alcoholism. right during the time where they’ve already gotten quite close, but before the war has passed its first full year of dragging on into exhaustion.
> 
> hope you enjoy!!!

What he notices first and foremost upon regaining consciousness is that everything hurts.

The second thing Charlie keys in to is that the world is entirely dark, which is a bit unnerving for a second before he realizes he just has his eyes closed, like an idiot. With a groan, he opens them. Blinking brings into focus the familiar blurry greyish ceiling of some large military tent, soaked through in patches by the rain.

“Charlie!” The ceiling is almost immediately eclipsed by Sameer’s face suddenly leaning over him, his friend’s elegant features twisted into a complex mix of relief and concern. Sami is clearly drenched to the bone, rainwater clinging to his disheveled curls and dripping onto Charlie’s pillow. “Thank goodness, you are awake!”

“Sami? Wh... wh’ happ’nd?” Charlie groans, lifting his rather dizzy pounding head in an attempt to sit up onto his elbows a little. It is an attempt that is immediately interrupted by Sami’s hand on his shoulder, gently but firmly pushing him back down onto the thin lumpy pillow of the cot.

“Oh no, _absolument_ not!” That stern frown of Sami’s is very familiar, the worried face he makes whenever in maximum mother-hen mode. “Lie down.”

He is rather uncharacteristically unkempt right now, curly hair all in damp disarray with soot and splatters of mud smeared on his face. There is also a sizeable bloodstain on one shoulder of his drenched coat, but the man himself doesn’t actually seem to be at all injured, just soaked. Despite the mess, he still somehow manages to look handsome, in a tired and rugged sort of way.

He’s also still frowning at him, hand on Charlie’s shoulder to make sure he doesn’t sit up any further. “You hit your head quite badly, and the nurses have said you should be resting, _mon ami_. I won’t have you undoing all of their hard work.”

“Och, fine!” With a sigh Charlie accepts his fate, resigning himself to lie back down. Uneasily, he eyes the bloodstains again, wondering if Sameer might in fact be hiding an injury of his own. He’s pretty sure the poor man is suppressing shivers.“...You’re alright, yeah?”

“ _Sí_ , more alright than you my friend.” Apparently satisfied that Charlie will stay put for now, Sameer settles himself back into what seems to have been his previous perch, sitting on the edge of the cot by Charlie’s hip. “Do you remember what day it is?”

Gratifyingly, it only takes a couple of seconds for the answer to present itself in Charlie’s mind. “Er, 28th of February, 1915.”

Thoughtful, Sami nods, watching him closely. “And your rank is...?”

“Corporal.” Easy.

”Middle name?”

”Robert.”

“Good.” Now Sameer tilts his head, examining. A pause. “And do you remember the name of your wife?”

“ _Wife_?!” Charlie lifts his head a bit at that, face screwing up in confusion as he blinks at him bewilderedly. “The bloody hell are you talkin’ about? Didya hit your head too? I haven’t _got_ a goddamn wife!”

Bastard that he is, Sameer instantly grins, eyes lighting up with mischievous humour at the same time his shoulders sag a little in relief. “Congratulations, you have passed the test!” he proclaims, flashing an enthusiastic double thumbs-up with a big cheeky shit-eating smile.

“ _Jesus_ christ...” Charlie mutters, rolling his eyes and trying quite unsuccessfully to bite back an amused quirk of his own lips.

Sameer chuckles and shakes his head ruefully — a few rebellious waterlogged curls break free of the others as he does so, hanging down across the top of his forehead. Charlie resolutely smothers the traitorous ache in his fingertips that urges him to reach up and brush them back into place. No. Don’t be foolish. That won’t be welcomed at all.

The conversation has slipped into a comfortable lull, as Charlie glances about and takes in what little he can see of their surroundings from his position, which is admittedly mostly just the dingy rain-stained ceiling. While Sami might be drenched, he finds himself to be quite a bit warmer and dryer. Some bits of clothing are a little damp, but someone has replaced his socks with dry ones and removed his boots, and his jacket and vest have disappeared in favour of a double layer of wool army blankets piled on top of him up to his armpits. He’s not even particularly chilly, really.

Around them, the general bustle and noise of feet and cart wheels on boards and pained groans and female voices calling orders indicates this is a medical tent. Obviously a somewhat busy one, likely at a base camp behind their lines. Given that his last recollection is of the two of them using the cover of a torrential downpour to sneak through an abandoned stretch of older German trenches, in an attempt to cross back over the current front line, this new location they find themselves in actually brings up some serious questions.

And Charlie never was good at holding his tongue. “So... how’d we get here, from behind the lines? I don’t really remember anythin’, after that explosion...”

Sami huffs a sharp mirthless laugh, inclining his head in agreement. “Yes, well that would be because the booby trap that you set off threw you a dozen feet and knocked you unconscious.” He grimaces. “The nurses, they say you are very lucky that nothing was broken, and that all they had to do was stitch up that cut on your rock-filled foolish head.”

“Hm.” Gingerly, Charlie reaches up to touch the bandage that has been wrapped around his cranium to patch up his right temple, and winces when it throbs exactly as much as expected. “Ow-”

“ _Idiota_ , stop touching that!” Sami leans over to gently swat the hand away, frowning in disapproval — he rolls his eyes, when Charlie swats back and stubbornly sticks out his tongue. “Goodness, so childish.”

“Aw, bite me,” Charlie mutters, no venom to it and a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. The smile fades slowly, while he watches Sami’s hands retreat to his lap. There is a question that has gone unaddressed. “...You still didn’t tell me how we got back here from across the line.”

Now Sameer is the one who drops his gaze, looking strangely sheepish as he fiddles with a button on his coat.

The pause goes on long enough that Charlie thinks perhaps he just won’t speak, before Sami somewhat abruptly blurts out,

“I carried you.”

When Charlie only blinks at him in startled silence, he barrels on, surprisingly light on details for a man who is typically such a vibrant storyteller. “Luckily Chief found us, after that, then led me here. He is off selling his wares to the soldiers right now, but he will be glad you woke up. At first I thought you might- we did worry, for a little while...” he trails off with another grimace, focus turning to some mud on the cuff of his coat as he picks at it.

And suddenly Charlie _can_ remember it, if only in snatches. Rain. Mud. Smoke. Lying on the ground, dizzily disoriented and hurting. Pain. Wondering if this is going to be when he finally kicks the bucket, wondering why his limbs feel like lead, wondering if anyone else was hurt.

And then- someone frantically shouting his name somewhere beyond the ringing of his ears, the fuzzy sensation of being carefully scooped up from the mud by strong arms beneath his knees and across his back, being cradled close to a warm steady shoulder as a familiar voice murmurs soothing things in a language he cannot understand-

“ _Oh_.”

His eyes are fixed upon the bloodstain on the shoulder of Sami’s coat. No longer a mystery.

Suddenly he feels oddly self-conscious about it, about the warm tight feeling this half-held memory conjures up in his chest and how his face feels hot, and quickly flicks his eyes away to the roof of the tent, then to the shape of his own feet under the wool blanket. “Oh, um... well, thanks, mate. I, uh. I owe you one.” It’s impossible not to wince at his own awkwardness.

And yet when he dares to meet his friend’s eyes, there is a look in them that makes his heart do something wobbly — a dark and earnest heavy gaze. “Perhaps, you might repay me by being more cautious next time,” Sameer says, and the line of his mouth is mimicking a tired smile but his eyes remain serious. “I happen to like my friends best when they are in one piece, and... a man of your talents is not one we can afford to lose.”

Charlie feels his cheeks heat and flush even more at that. A slightly helpless chuckle tumbles from his mouth, as he tries to play things towards joking and wave the comment off. “Psh! None o’ that now, sunshine. You don’t gotta flatter me just to make me feel better.”

“I mean it, Charlie.” Leaning forward, Sami lays a gentle hand over his forearm, and Charlie freezes under the touch. Now there is a genuine pleading edge to Sami’s big brown eyes, as he says with startling softness and sincerity, “ _S’il te plaît_ , be more careful with yourself. If nothing else, do it for me, to ease my peace of mind?”

“I- okay.” Charlie’s mouth speaks without any input from his brain, which is a little bit too probably-concussed to immediately process anything beyond the fact that when Sami gives him that look, he would promise anything the man asked.

Sameer... Sameer worries about him that much? That doesn’t make sense. He is just Charlie, ordinary and awkward and relatively disposable. Nobody really cares much whether he is safe, not him specifically — he’s just a number, a rank and a gun, a set of useful skills. But...

But he thinks about the voice calling his name through the smoke and haze, that sound of worried desperation. Gentle hands holding him close, carrying him to safety. Soothing reassurances whispered in half a dozen foreign tongues. Letting his blood stain the very same cherished coat on which a few spots of mud could usually lead to an afternoon of fretting complaints. Sitting, cold and drenched and shivering, by his side until he woke — or in case he didn’t.

Most people might not care about him, sure.

But, in this as in all things, Sameer has never really been anything at all like most people.

So Charlie shifts to grip Sami’s arm in return, squeezing in reassurance. “Alright, lad. I’ll try, I promise,” he says, forcing himself to keep holding Sami’s gaze, keep holding his arm, even though both things kind of burn him. Then he allows himself a small sly smile, and adds, cheeky, “But only ‘cause you asked so nicely.” He winks.

The serious expression washes away from Sameer’s face in the wake of a blinding grin, the sort of broad toothy smile that stretches from ear to ear and brings out little crinkled creases at the corners of his eyes as he chuckles, relieved. “Ah, _m_ _agnifique_!”

For a moment they simply sit there smiling at each other, nothing in mind to really say next but smiling all the same. Outside the tent cold winter rain is still pouring down in sheets, but here basking in Sami’s happiness, Charlie feels warm all over.

It is Sami who breaks their gaze, the grip of their hands and the silence — clapping both hands on his own knees he says, “Well! I suppose I must go get a nurse, to check you over now that you are awake.”

“Aye,” Charlie sighs, preemptively resigning himself to being fussed over and prodded at. “Bring me somethin’ to drink, too, if ya don’t mind?”

Sami nods as he pushes to his feet. “Yes, I will fetch you some water, of course.”

“Scotch?” Charlie tries, optimistic and half-joking, even though he knows he’s unlikely to be successful. A proper drink really would be nice, though, to calm the fidgety feeling in his fingers, the throbbing in his head.

“Haha! No.” Sami deadpans, hands in his pockets as he starts to back away into the aisle between rows of beds. “No, you will have water and you _will_ like it, _monsieur_.”

“Bah! Fine.” Charlie folds his arms and scowls, though it’s largely performative and fades within seconds, while he watches Sami laughing and shaking his head as he turns and begins to walk away down the aisle. Then a thought stumbles back into Charlie’s mind, and he blurts out “Oh- Sameer, wait!”

Sami pivots back on his heel as if attached to a swivel, expression open and curious in a way which makes him look terribly soft, when paired with the fluffy mess of his damp curly hair. “Yes?”

It takes half a moment, but Charlie does manage to remember what it was he was going to say. “Make sure you take a chance to get warmed up and dried off soon, yeah? Cannae risk losing a man of your talents just ‘cause you caught a wee chill.” He knows by now how Sameer can get when he’s busy trying to solve a problem, so intently focused on taking care of others that he forgets to care for himself.

“Oh.” Sami looks down at his body, as if noticing for the very first time that all his clothing is still absolutely soaked through from the rain and covered in mud and bloodstains. Nodding, he offers up a smile that is small, humble, but no less genuine and life-ruining than any others. “Right, yes of course. _Merci_ Charlie, I will.”

Charlie smiles in return, and watches Sami’s head and shoulders retreat through the rows of beds until he disappears past the edge of what Charlie can see without moving his head any further.

Faintly, he can hear Sameer’s distinctly accented voice speaking with some nurses, words inaudible and indistinguishable — surely flirting at least a little bit, polishing up the tale of his grand heroics in an effort to make the ladies swoon and fawn over him. The thought makes a familiar sour note of selfish, pathetic jealousy twist to life in Charlie’s stomach, writhing and turning foully for a few seconds before he resolutely stomps it out. Jealousy will only lead to resentment, and he doesn’t want to feel that way about his best friend.

He feels a lot of ways he shouldn’t, about his best friend.

“Fuck,” he declares to the rain-mottled ceiling, and lets out a long, tired sigh.

**Author's Note:**

> Dialogue prompt: “I carried you.”
> 
> I feel like now is as good a time as any to drop the fact that the reason I keep throwing passing references to Sami being physically strong is that beneath all the layers of tweed and wool in that costume [Saïd Taghmaoui is (not even just as a younger man but like presently, to this day) legitimately stacked](https://images.app.goo.gl/yu2mCDRBLzHE6K5q8). I like to think Sami, image-conscious flirt that he is, probably keeps himself in pretty good shape for a middle-aged guy in 1918, too. :) (Charlie, like Ewen Bremner, is an [erstwhile former twink](https://images.app.goo.gl/DJNVV7CfvKvRUhJB9) made entirely of toothpicks, bony knees and razor-sharp elbows, bless him)
> 
> anyway moving on, I think we all love a good story of somebody realizing how much someone else cares about them and being kind of absolutely bowled over by it, and I hope that’s what I’ve given you here! dear secretly-softhearted Charlie who (even in 1915) doesn’t think very much of himself but thinks Sami hung the moon, and kind selfless Sami who just wants to keep his endearingly strange best friend who laughs at all his jokes safe. ma bois
> 
> hope you are all doing well out there! kudos and comments brighten my day, and if you wanna talk about these characters or other nonsense I am also @oopsabird on tumblr


End file.
